What Makes a Good Book Good?

As I look back on books that I read in 2023, and consider my “to be read” lineup for 2024, I have been pondering what makes a good book good. The designation of “classic” books ebbs and flows with the times—many I read in high school and college are deemed inappropriate in today’s world, but I’m not here to debate that issue. Social media bombards us with the latest hot book club read from Oprah or Reese or Jenna, or we can peruse the New York Times Bestsellers for books people are buying, but at the end of the day what makes a good book good is utterly subjective.

There was a season when I couldn’t get enough historical biographies a la Ron Chernow, and even though I haven’t read one in years, the lingering memory of his tome on Alexander Hamilton ensconced itself in my mind long before Lin Manuel’s catchy musical. I chewed through the Grisham books in the 90s, stealing any moment I could get to keep reading. My dad hooked me on the Mitford books for a while, which I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise, but I loved our conversations about the latest goings on in the tiny town and though I can’t remember one character’s name, I remember sharing it with my dad.

I’ve come up with a few categories for books I consider good. It’s broad, and, like all good books, subjective. Fight me.

The way it makes you feel.

Can you remember the first book you loved? I can. It was “Little House on the Prairie,” followed closely by “Little Women.” I loved them so much I read them over and over. Something about the adventurous spirits of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Jo March resonated so deeply in my soul that I wanted to be a pioneer girl making ice cream out of snow or a fledgling writer selling her first stories. They told of interesting places and times, but I loved them because they made me feel happy and sad and worried and mad. Thinking of the opening chapter of “Little Women” makes my heart soar even now. There is heartache and sadness in both, but an overriding joy. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the depths of despair I felt when Old Dan dies saving Billy, and Little Ann dies having lost the will to live without him in “Where the Red Fern Grows” still brings tears to my eyes today. I would read any of these childhood classics again in a heartbeat and feel the same way. Some books make us laugh, some make us cry, but a book that makes you feel something indelible is a good book indeed. These kinds of books are few and far between for me, but in the last twenty years, I would say “The Kite Runner” wrecked me, the camaraderie of the crew of misfits in Louise Penny’s “Still Life” made me smile, and the bravery and goodness of Katniss in “The Hunger Games” inspired me.

Great writing.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Dickens’ words are so beautiful they still haunt me. Many good books are good because the writing captures a thought or a feeling with expert precision. I can still remember the last line of Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”: “After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.” Wow! No one writes depressing words like the king of depression himself, and his words are achingly simple.

I will say, beautiful writing is not enough for me to put a book on my list of favorites. One example for me is “A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 and contained eloquent descriptions of the Iowa landscape. Here is a snippet:

For millennia, water lay over the land. Untold generations of water plants, birds, animals, insects, lived, shed bits of themselves, and died. I used to imagine how it all drifted down, lazily, in the warm, soupy water—leaves, seeds, feathers, scales, flesh, bones, petals, pollen—then mixed with the saturated soil below and became, itself, soil. I used to like to imagine the millions of birds darkening the sunset, settling the sloughs for the night, or a breeding season, the riot of their cries and chirps, the rushing hough-shhh of twice millions of wings, the swish of their twiglike legs or paddling feet in the water, sounds barely audible until amplified by millions. And the sloughs would be teeming with fish: shiners, suckers, pumpkinseeds, sunfish, minnows, nothing special, but millions or billions of them. I liked to imagine them because they were the soil, and the soil was the treasure, thicker, richer, more alive with a past and future abundance of life than any soil anywhere.

This is beautiful writing, but the book made me scream, and I thought I would never finish it. Sorry, Jane, but your prose did not elevate your story, or lack thereof, for me. Clearly, the Pulitzer committee disagreed, and her excellent writing covers a multitude of sins, since I still remember the gist of the book.

Great writing stands the test of time, and an author who can turn a phrase can turn our hearts in ways that a good plot can’t. This is the reason Shakespeare coats our vernacular like varnish (click here to see some of his well-written phrases still used today). Right now, I am trudging through another Pulitzer Prize winner, “The Goldfinch,” (I know, I am late to the party), and even though the plot is making me poke my eyes out, my breath catches when Donna Tartt’s words capture a thought or a feeling. “Sometimes it’s about playing a poor hand well.” Yes, Donna, yes. I can’t wait to be done with it, but I get it. Words are why Steinbeck and the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen and Tolstoy and F. Scott Fitzgerald stand the test of time.

A romp in someone’s shoes.

Speaking of great words, one of my favorite quotes is from “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” Amen. Good books transport us into the bodies of people whose perspective we have never considered. I hadn't imagined what it was like to be “unclean” in Biblical times until “The Red Tent.” “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” plunked me down in the streets of Kabul and opened my eyes to the realities of living there. Last year, I devoured Jill Duggar’s memoir “Counting the Cost,” and “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins put me in the fictional shoes of a woman desperate to protect her child as she races across Mexico, fleeing murderous cartels to escape to safety across the border. Story illuminates the immigration issue in a way that political debates cannot, but new perspectives don’t have to be so heavy. The first-person narrative of “The Maid” by Nita Prose put me inside the brilliant head of Molly, who is on the autism spectrum, and made me smile and laugh out loud. I loved it so much I am reading its sequel “The Mystery Guest.” Good books help me understand the mind of someone who differs from me, or lives in a different time and place.

An escape.

 Most of us want to escape into a good book, which is why fantasy and romance dominate book sales. There is nothing wrong with disappearing down a rabbit hole with “Bridgerton” (but oh, those racy scenes!) or time-traveling with “Outlander” (but oh, those racy scenes!) Escaping into a book is like a Hallmark movie in the best possible way, and the plots are usually better.

Can’t put it down.

There is nothing like a forsake your family, forget to eat book you can’t put down. Racing to the next chapter brings a deeper joy than any binge watch on Netflix can. Liane Moriarty’s books suck me in like a vacuum, not letting go until I look up and realize I haven’t changed clothes, and the sun has set outside and now it is morning. Oh, what fun! John Grisham and Stephen King are masters, and most of us can’t resist a great plot with a well-placed cliffhanger to keep us turning pages.

A shared experience.

There is a reason book clubs exist, and it's not just wine and cheese. It's fun to read a book at the same time as others, then discuss it. Book clubs democratically pick books we might not otherwise read, and open our minds to new authors and stories. Reading the latest New York Times bestseller and knowing thousands of others are reading it bridges gaps, and discovering someone else is reading what you are reading is a treat. There is a reason we can't wait to tell someone about a book we love. The best books are a shared experience.

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Any reader will tell you the book is better than the movie, because books transport us places that movies can only hope and strive to. I wish I read more. I want to read more. No guilt if you are not a reader (try Audible), but I promise you books are worth the time. A good book will stick with you forever, no matter if anyone else liked it or not, and that is a powerful thing.

What do you think makes a good book good?